THE COURTIER OF MISFORTUNE: A BONAPARTIST STORY. 227 Trochu ! able for the piano comes into my head, and | Bands of workmen, who ought to have even if there are no regular passages in it, why been at drill, strolled by rows of twenty should I be afraid of writing it down? Then, arm-in-arm along the carriage-ways, bawla very important branch of pianoforte music ing vinously, "Vive la République! Vive which I am particularly fond of - Trios, Quartets and other things with accompaniA bas Badinguet!" Policement, is quite forgotten now, and I greatly men were invisible. Women and peasfeel the want of something new in that line. ants pushing hand-carts laden with furniIt ture before them streamed in from the country districts round Paris, and seemed to be on the look-out for lodgings. Newspapers found a brisk sale, boys screamed the Marseillaise, and tradesmen, with scared faces, were climbing ladders to unhook Imperial escutcheons, and paint out the words " Purveyor to their Majes ties," in which but a day ago they had gloried. I should like to do a little towards this. farewell. Your FELIX. From The Cornhill Magazine. THE COURTIER OF MISFORTUNE: A BONAPARTIST STORY. III. ON the 4th September, 1870, towards one o'clock in the afternoon, an officer in a cuirassier uniform got out of a train on the platform of the Northern Station, jumped into the first cab he could find it happened to be an open one and told the coachman, in a fevered voice, to drive him to the Tuileries. His uniform was soiled and torn; there was mud on his boots up to the knees, his head was bound up in bandages clotted with blood, and his haggard face bore a week's unshaved beard. A mob pressing outside the station for news, recognized him for an officer, no doubt from Sedan, and gave him a ringing cheer, but he bent his head and made no response. The city bore nothing of the mourning aspect he had expected. The cafés were full and noisy. I The cab drove quickly, but at the bottom of the Rue de Valois had to stop, for the Place du Palais Roval was full of people. The cuirassier got out, paid the driver, and endeavoured to hurry unobserved through the crowd, which was rather a curious than an He did somehow force himself a passage excited one. through the mobs surging towards the Hôtel de Ville on the one hand, towards the Tuileries Gardens on the other; and when he reached the sentry mounting guard somewhat nervously at the Carrousel gate, opened his cloak to show the despatch-bag slung over his tunic, and was allowed to pass in without question. The immense yard, adorned with a triumphal arch reared to celebrate past victories over a people now conquerors in their turn, was almost deserted; but at broken intervals men, for the most part in civilian dress, shuffled panic-stricken across the yard and entered the palace. The cuirassier followed them, climbed the staircase, where no usher or footman stood to ask intruders their business, brushed past a terrified group of ladies, who were coming down the stairs with travelling-bags in their hands, and asked for the aide-de-camp on duty. He was directed to go down a passage to the right, did so, and remitted his despatchbag. Then with the receipt crushed between his fingers, wandered about unheeded amid startled figures running or rushing down the corridors, till he found himself in the room where some three months before he had received a kindness from an Emperor, then in the full pomp and grandeur of his power. All the last friends of the fallen court were there, but not so much high dignitaries for these took care of themselves nor Jobuses-they are never to be seen in such moments -as younger men and modest functionaries, whose fealty to defend the Empress against yonder had not perhaps been always appreciated curs?" in brighter days, but came out true and A silence replied to this question, and pure now in this hour of adversity. The one young man alone stepped out with a appearance of the officer and his travel-revolver. The rest had come unarmed. stained clothes caused a sensation, and a move was made towards him. A few recognized him despite his bandage, which, now his kepi was off, gave him the look of being turbaned, and they said, "It's Colonel Courpreux, who rode next M'Mahon in the charge of the cuirassiers at Reischoffen, and was promoted on the field." They gathered round him eagerly, and inquired of him if he had news: "You were at Sedan, Colonel; is all really lost? and it was a gloomy thing to hear these men ask this about a country and a sovereign they loved. "Yes, all's lost," groaned Courpreux, "but the honour of the Emperor, who has been betrayed, and that of our War Office, who had no honour to lose." "How did the Emperor bear it?" "Simply, like a man. He was never greater than when he drove through the town with an expression on his face that might have touched the very stones, and gave up his sword to save his army. People will say here that he should have died, but anybody has the courage to die. The courage is to live, and to endure all this," and he pointed with his hand to the Tuileries Gardens, at the end of which a mob was to be seen approaching with gesticulations and waving of flags. They were faithful to the point of risking A few of the bystanders winced — in particular, two priests, who would not have grudged their blood, though it was not their duty to shed any. Several moved to follow Courpreux; but at this moment a door was opened, and the Empress appeared with one of her ladies-inwaiting, Count Palikao, an aide-de-camp, and one or two other advisers. She was dressed in black, was calm and resigned, and, hearing that firearms had been exhibited, sent to request as a last favour to her that no resistance should be offered. Her Majesty was then told that one of the gentlemen who wished to defend her was Colonel Cœurpreux, and she prayed her aide-de-camp to summon him. M. Cœurpreux arrived with the tears still welling over his eyes - though it was no fault of his, for he struggled hard enough to keep them in - and possibly as he stood before her, with his head bowed and his knees shaking, the Empress recognized the man who had been painted to her by the Jobuses and Cris as a factious subject. "Colonel, you found your way through the enemy's lines to bring me a letter from the Emperor," she said, in a soft, sad voice. "I thank you, and wish it were still in my power to reward your devotion." Count Palikao, the Prime Minister, passed rapidly through the room, and disappeared into a chamber where the Empress was known to be; and all gathered round the windows. The mob were drawing nearer, and the quays could be seen covered with people who had been to the Corps Législatif, where M. Gambetta had been haranguing the multitude, and exhorting it to clamour for the Emperor's deposition. Chevalier Nigra, the Italian Ambassador, entered with a breezy aspect as if nothing particular were happening, and a chaplain asked him if there were any hope. "Hope of what?" answered M. Nigra, cheerfully, and went the way of M. de Palikao, but with a careless, swinging stride, for all this was no great concern of his. Cœurpreux leaned in a window-recess moan- "No, not a drop of French blood must ing, but as he perceived that the mob be shed for me," she answered quietly, swelled and advanced each second like a "nor would I forgive myself for depriv rising tide, he drew a revolver, and cast-ing France of a life like yours, Colonel, ing a keen look about him, said: at a time when brave men are more than ever needed. Still, again I thank you." "Gentlemen, I hope we are all prepared 66 Madam," murmured Courpreux, in words of which each syllable sprang vibrating from his heart, "you can give me the only reward I covet by allowing me to lay down my life for you." And she extended her hand to him with a grateful smile. He dropped on one knee and pressed it to his lips reverentially. he strode down the Rue de Rivoli, not caring much whom he elbowed, it was twenty minutes past three, and the tricolour flag which had been waving eighteen years on the late Imperial palace was hauled down. Two petit crevés, or swells of the small French sort, watched of the Place des Pyramides, and one, At this juncture Prince Metternich and M. de Lesseps approached quickly. They spoke a few words, but their looks said more than they uttered. The Empress glanced towards the gardens where the this historical occurrence from a corner crowd had by this time become a host, whose shouts broke loud and imperatively through the stillness of this room filled with expectant courtiers. Her lips quivered faintly for a single instant, and the pallor of her face deepened just enough to show that it was pain, not fear, she felt. Then she turned with queenly selfpossession, and made to the loyal few who remained her grandest curtseythat of the state galas now gone and for- One of the most comforting features of gotten amidst other ruins; this was the French revolutions is, as we have hinted, signal that all was over: the Empire had that although thrones go crash and kings fallen; the Empress retired, and the go where they can, the Cris and Jobuses friends of the eleventh hour were free to bend their respected heads like reeds, go and see to themselves, their goods and let the whole whirlwind sweep above and their chattels. They scampered without uprooting them. The signboard downstairs, putting their best feet fore- and landlord of the Inn are changed, but most, and the palace became a show to cooks and waiters are the same, and in-the rabble, who presently flooded in, asmuch as the public depend rather on their mouths agape, and filled it from the cooks and waiters for comfort and floor to attic with their savoury majesty. good attendance than upon the landlord Cœurpreux had heard a few of the and the signboard, this may serve to exwords which Prince Metternich had let plain why the collapse of many thrones fall, and he went and stood near the gate affects less in the general weal than the of the Louvre opposite the Church of St. displacement of a single Jobus might do. Germain l'Auxerrois, where a cab was Anyhow, when Cœurpreux came to report waiting. In a few minutes the veiled himself at the War Office, he found there forms of two ladies glided out, and Coeur- the set of clerks who had just been rollpreux, though he could not be seen be- ing the army into the chasm, filling up hind the angle where he had sheltered printed papers that were to roll other himself, bared his head as they passed. armies the same way, with their habitual He watched to see that no one recog- serenity. It was Sunday and they had nized or molested the Lady whom M. de no need to work; but never mind that; Lesseps handed into the fly, and his gaze they were always ready to devote themfollowed this vehicle as it turned and dis- selves to their country's good, especially appeared with its blinds down, and the on a Revolution Sunday, when, if absent, Italian ambassador on the box beside the their places might be filled up by other coachman. It would have fared ill, then, folk. Nothing was altered, save that in with any partisan of equality who should the room of the little big clerk, who had have stood in the horse's way or offered received Cœurpreux before, a bust of the a rude word to the Empress, whom this Emperor had disappeared in favour of a unconscious hack was drawing into exile, photograph of General Trochu, and the for Cœurpreux was in that mind when to small clerk informed his visitor that he have faced a whole horde of the popu- had foreseen all along how it would end, lace with his solitary sword and revolver, and that if his — the clerk's - advice had and to have bitterly flung in their teeth been taken, matters would have turned their base treason and cowardice, would out very differently. He supposed Colhave been a grim pleasure. But nobody onel Courpreux would be asked to form afforded him that satisfaction. The fly and command a regiment during the jogging along unremarked mingled with siege, but he could give him no orders other flys; and Courpreux emerging for the present. He only ventured to from his concealment, went with an ach- warn him (and looked very immaculate ing heart about business of his own. As in so doing) that he must now moderate - the Bonapartist zeal for which he had, "The army? oh, no I leave that to been unfavourably conspicuous. The Bayards like you," sniggered M. de Cri, Empire had disgraced itself, and no as if vastly tickled by the notion. "No, Frenchman worthy of the name could I'm off to my prefectship, which has just feel any sympathy for so odious a régime : been confirmed to me by Gambetta; and "Odious a régime!" echoed Courpreux, I may tell you in confidence, that I manas the blood mounted to his face. "Andaged this thing very slyly. Foreseeing, who made it odious but you and your you know, after the first defeat of you likes? Ah, sir clerk, try and give me gentlemen, how the wind would soon and others as little of your advice as pos- blow, I came up to Paris on the quiet, sible, and the better it will be for us all. and entered into relations with all this When I think that the earth once swal- crew, Favre, Simon, Gambetta. I promlowed up a pair called Dathan and Abi- ised that if there was a republican rising, ram, and when I see you sitting alive I would abet them, and play my departthere with that heap of papers, I am in- ment into their hands, which of course clined to wonder whether we are footing was all chaff, for if the rising hadn't been the same globe. Heaven help me!" and successful here I shouldn't have been such he went out slamming the door, and a ninny as to start pranks out there, but shaking the dust off his feet. The Jo- they took it in. They counted me as one bus-clerk, naturally much disgusted, pre- of theirs, and here am I off as a prefect served an attitude full of dignity, and on of the Republic to the town where yesterthe first opportunity informed General day I was a prefect of the Empire-and Trochu that a certain Courpreux was in I hope for promotion soon. Sic itur ad all likelihood a Bonapartist conspirator, astra-hee, hee!" and might with advantage be despatched to outposts where the shells fell thickest. The General promised to make a note of the matter, and eventually did. "And what will Mdme. de Cri think of this sudden conversion?" asked Cœurpreux with more contempt in his voice than would have served to wither up any other ten men not being hereditary placehunters. But Cœurpreux's 4th September trials were not over yet. On his way from the War Office back into the noisier parts of "Oh, my wife; it's she who advised Paris, where he hoped to learn for cer- me to do it all. Dux fœmina facit — tain who were definitely the new rulers hee! hee! You see we've no private of his country-a point on which, in fortune, and if I'd lost my place I don't common with other men who accept new well know what I could have done, for I Governments like wind and rain, as they have saved little-a man who expects to come, he was still doubtful he crossed be Cabinet Minister and will be able a Victoria carrying M. Nepos Lémargeux then to rig the money-market and clear Desfonds de Cri, an umbrella, and a car-what sums he pleases, doesn't go in for pet-bag. M. de Cri checked the driver, cheese-paring economies, you know; so and waved the umbrella to attract Cœur-my wife said to me,' Make the best of preux's attention. This chivalrous pre- our national disasters: it's an ill wind fect had put away the rosette which used blows nobody good;' and, as you perceive, to grace his button-hole, and which of that is true enough, for there are plenty yore he had grovelled so patiently to of folk will be housed well to-night who earn, and he had so arranged things that were not much to look at yesterday." the title of a republican newspaper Cœurpreux turned cruelly sick at heart. peeped over the edge of his breast pock-On an ordinary trimmer he would not et, herald of his new-born convictions. In have wasted a breath of scorn - nor so this guise he stretched forth his hand to much as a shrug-disdaining such verCœurpreux out of the cab in the midst min as a sportsman does rats; but that of the Rue Royale, and gabbled: Violette's husband should be a man of Congratulate me, Commandant at this class, and that he should have inoculeast, no, you're Colonel now-congrat-lated with his sordid principles a woman ulate me, I'm off." who had been true and pure before she "Where to the army?" and the had been sold to him in bondage, was a Colonel wondered whether mayhap this pang indeed. Yet Courpreux had the person had been stricken with honesty comfort of believing that M. de Cri lied in his declining years, and impelled to do ignobly, and that Violette had never something in defence of the country that consented to the impudent barter of conhad been such an unchanging and untir-science which her husband laid to her ing milch-cow to him. charge. But in this he was mistaken. Wedded to him, Violette would have en- | boozle it through ages to come by means of perjured epitaphs. dured poverty without a murmur, and scaled with a glad brave heart any heights of heroism and self-sacrifice to which he had chosen to lead her. But poverty along with M. de Cri was a very different story, and Violette had really asked her husband to make what he could of the general ruin which was bowing all patriotic heads in shame. This would seem to show that heroism, like other plants, needs special soils to make it thrive, and that wives are but as looking-glasses in which their husband's souls are reflected with more or less fidelity. M. de Cri's soul being a dingy one, Violette's partook of it in many domestic features. This is not poetry, but it is the truth which meets us at every step; and had it not been so that is, had Violette wished to remain heroic after her marriage to one like M. de Cri, she must have become a faithless wife, which is a dilemma worth brooding over by moralists great and small. IV. As for General Cœurpreux, he was the man who had covered himself with what little glory was gleaned during the siege of Paris. He had fought, not talked. His regiment went to battle without bragging, and returned always thinned, but never daunted. The War-Office clerks opined that it was scandalous a man should rise from Captain to General of Brigade in less than two years, and they busied themselves actively to get him shorn of some of the honours he had earned whilst they sat by their fireside, hoping with brotherly unanimity they might soon be called in their official capacities to record his death. But the Commission which was appointed to revise the distinctions conferred during the war rose bareheaded when Cœurpreux was introduced, and the General who presided handed him his commission ratified by the signatures of the entire Board. The Provisional Republic sent him to command at Seinebourg, and Cœurpreux accepted the appointment because he Two years and a half sped by, and, considered the Republic a provisional just a twelvemonth ago now, at the be- one and nothing more. He made no seginning of the year 1873, it began to be cret of his opinions on this head, and bruited in the prosperous town of Seine-continued to speak of Napoleon III. as bourg that General Courpreux, who com- Emperor, without prefixing an " ex." manded the district, would shortly marry Had the Republic been consolidated, his Mdme. de Cri, née Violette Desprès, the good friends the clerks would have had widow of the late lamented Prefect. the gratification of writing to request he People were still full of the details of M. would resign; as it was, the big people de Cri's untimely death, and of the im- of Versailles kept a watchful eye on him, posing funeral which had been decreed and booked him mentally as a dangerous him out of the public taxes. At the time man, who must be tolerated for his good when the Commune was raging in Paris, services, but shelved as soon as feasible. the striking (or, as they are by some hu- Perhaps, in truth, Cœurpreux's conduct morously called, the "working") classes was not quite prudent. In his rooms he of Seinebourg had tried to get up a simi- hung portraits of the Emperor, the Emlar institution for themselves, and might press, and the Prince Imperial. Three have succeeded but for General Cœur- times a year- that is, towards the 16th preux. Before he had time to parley March, the 15th August, and the 15th with them or adopt their views to save November - he applied for a week's his precious life, the Communists slew leave, and went to Chislehurst, with a M. de Cri with an accidental bullet. bouquet of violets made in Paris and of Whereon orations in his honour were sol- a yard's circumference. He offered this emnly pronounced in the National As- fête-day tribute to the exiled family, and sembly; a pension was voted to his assured them of his unwavering devotion; widow; and the municipal council of then he returned, and if people asked Seinebourg, escorted by a whole regi- him where he had been, he replied simment, with muffled drums and arms re-ply: "To do homage to my Sovereign." versed followed him to his grave, where soon after a monument was erected on which a local journalist proposed to inscribe the words, "Sta, viator, martyrem calcas!" There are men whose luck attends them beyond the tomb. After hoaxing mankind in this life, they bam Seinebourg was a righteous town, which drove an honest trade and went to church when it had time; but it did not understand chivalry pushed to this length. It had given the Emperor an enthusiastic reception once when he had visited the town, and witnessed with unmixed satis |